Celtic Thunder's own Ryan dishes the goods

The handsome Co. Tyrone lad Ryan Kelly from Irish celtic music band Celtic Thunder gave a very honest interview to Mass Appeal recently and here are some of our favorite questions and answers.

The full interview can be seen on www.wwlp.com

What's your favorite place in America?

"I love New York. I love Boston as well because I was a big Celtics fan. I like the sports around Boston. You go to the west coast and San Diego is a lovely spot, Portland, Oregon."
What's it like having to deal with some fans? When you go places, people go nuts?

"At the start, it was very strange and surreal. I guess it still is. We have a loyal band of fans that they call Thunder Heads. That's what they call themselves. They come to all our shows and they sit there and, we have these beautiful theaters. They just treat us like a rock show and they scream and shout and they dance. It's fantastic because, we have fun on stage because we see everybody having fun in the audience. It's great to have the loyal band and it's growing every day. For people that haven't heard about us, if they want to come along tonight, they are guaranteed a great night out. It's very much a family show, I think. You look into the audience and there are people from four years old to 104 and everything in between. There are different songs, and we are all so different, the five of us. It's something that appeals to everyone.

"We have a full band behind us. I think the last count eight or nine on stage with us. There's a lot of Irish instruments there, too. One guy Brandon who plays everything from tin whistle to drums to a thing called the yeelen pipes. It's pipes that you use your elbow to play with. Some things that people have never saw before. We've got a fantastic percussion section. We have got a drummer and string quartet and full works.

Is there a story that sort of encompasses your show?

"There's probably a loose story in there that, as I said before, there's five guys on stage. It ranges in the age from Damien, who has just turned 18 there, to George, who is on the wrong side of 40 at the minute. George pretty much sings a lot of songs as a family guy, somebody who has been through life and came in with the younger guys who sings the younger songs. In between there's three other guys. They are loose songs, but it's more important as the songs and on the song choice that we have on stage, they are songs that people know and can sing along to. There's probably some new stuff there as well. The first half of our show is totally Celtic, so it's all the Irish songs and Scottish songs but we have put a different sort of tint on them. The second part of the show is entertainment where we sing songs from Brian Adams and the like, you know. Modern American songs that we've grown up listening to and put our Celtic spin on them as well.."

Celtic Thunder is a singing group composed of six male soloists who perform both solo and ensemble numbers.

Their latest album saw them being joined byNeil Byrne, who had played guitar and sang backup on the previous albums.

Celtic Thunder debuted in August 2007 at The Helix in Dublin, Ireland.

They are accompanied by the Celtic Concert Orchestra under the direction of Phil Coulter, the musical director of the group.